How dare we deprive people of the chance to die with dignity

I am a 63-year-old lady with a mother still ‘alive’. You will see that I have written ‘alive’ in inverted commas. Physically she is capable of movement but she could not tell you what day it is, where she is, or who I am. I see myself in her shoes in 25 years’ time and it absolutely terrifies me and makes me very, very angry in equal measure.

My elderly mother says the same thing regularly and frequently. ‘I have had enough’, ‘I want to be gone’, ‘can’t you just shoot me?’

She does not want to be so utterly beholden to others for everyday care, she does not want to carry on, and she is definitely not enjoying the utterly humiliating experience of being totally dependent on others.

My mother has excruciating back pain which is only going to get worse – how utterly terrifying. If my mother could look down on her current self from a height of 20 years ago she would be completely and utterly appalled to see the depths to which she has sunk – incontinent, confused and in constant pain.

If I kept a dog existing in this fashion I would (rightly) be made the subject of an RSPCA prosecution.

The assisted dying petition does not go far enough in my book. It seeks only to allow people with terminal illnesses the right to end their life on their terms – but it is a start. How dare we deprive these poor people of an opportunity to die with dignity.

What I demand is choice, the right to exercise my choice. To those whose religious principles prevent them from going down the path of assisted dying I say ‘good luck’, but how dare they seek to prevent me from taking that path. What right have others got to tell me how I should end my life?

There are now – mercifully – a number of jurisdictions that permit their citizens this most basic of human rights. Many of them are huge and yet they feel they can put enough safeguards in place to protect the vulnerable. Surely a little jurisdiction like Guernsey/Alderney can be even more satisfied that abuses will not take place. In any event I would say that keeping a terminally ill person alive against their will is a far greater abuse. That it is currently the norm in our community – regardless of the lack of religious belief by the patient – is an absolute disgrace. We should all hang our heads in shame to permit such a truly awful state of affairs to exist – it must stop now.

Please do not have Faith, please support Reason. Have Mercy.

HELEN McGREGOR,

Wells House,

Longis Common,

Alderney,

GY9 3YB.